“Hang on, Zig! I’m goosin’ it!” He rammed the throttles full forward,
cutting in the Tomcat’s afterburners as he stood the aircraft on its
tail. He heard Zig-Zag Ziegler grunt over the ICS as the acceleration
slammed them into their ejection seats.
“We got two splittin’ off!” Zig-Zag reported, his voice crackling over
the ICS with excitement and tension. “Two splittin’ off! They’re
coming’ after us, man!”
The Tomcat continued to climb, pursued now by a pair of Chinese-copied
MiGs, while the two remaining MiGs stayed on the deck, streaking south.
Taggart caught a glimpse of sun flashing from silver wings, of arrowing
white contrails in the humid air.
He pulled the stick over sharply, breaking out of his climb and dropping
toward the jungle. If the MiGs going after Batman got too far ahead …
“Tone!” Ziegler yelled. “Price! They got lock-on!”
He heard the warble of missile lock over his headphones. Someone was
lining him up for a radar-targeted launch.
“Keep cool, Zig,” he yelled. “They’re messing with our minds. that’s
all!”
The MiG launched an instant later.
1250 hours, 17 January
Tomcat 232
There was no time to think as the SAM clawed toward the Tomcat. Tactical
doctrine claimed that it was easy to shake a Grail’s infrared lock;
often all that was necessary was to throttle back until its electronic
concentration on the plane’s engines was broken.
The problem was they were already flying low and slow. He’d have to
goose it hard just to get enough speed for maneuver … and he was
rapidly running out of sky.
He dropped the Tomcat’s left wing, sharpening his turn. He could see
the Grail’s twisting white tail bending to follow. It was ignoring the
flares, homing unerringly on the heat from the F-14’s engines, and
Batman remembered learning that Grails were fitted with filters which
screened out decoy flares.
He had to pick up speed now.
Trading precious altitude for more speed, Batman plunged toward the
jungle canopy, watching as the rapidly sweeping hands of his altimeter
ticked off the feet. The missile followed.
1250 hours, 17 January
Tomcat 203
Taggart pulled the Tomcat into a seven-G turn, standing on the port wing
as he tried to outrace the missile. “Chaff!” he yelled. “Dump chaff!”
Packets of aluminum-coated mylar strips burst one after another from the
Tomcat’s tail, dispersing in a cloud behind and below the aircraft.
Taggart caught a glimpse of the two MiGs following him, a tight-knit
pair of specks low on the horizon. The radar-homer twisted toward him.
“Homeplate! Homeplate!” he called. “This is Two-oh-three. We have
launch. Repeat, confirm bandit launch!” Switching to the intercom
again, he added, “Arm missiles!”
“Hot and armed.”
The missile curved through the sky toward them …
1251 hours, 17 January
Tomcat 232
Batman kicked in the Tomcat’s afterburners, and six Gs molded him to the
hard frame of his ejection seat. “Keep … popping … flares …!” he
grunted against the pressure. The treetops clutched at his left
wingtip, seemingly only a few yards below as he hauled back on the
stick. He glanced back over his shoulder as he pulled out of the dive,
estimating the Grail’s angle of attack. Adrenaline surged, sharpening
every sense, every perception.
The missile flew up the F-14’s port engine.
Batman both heard and felt the explosion, a solid whump which
transmitted itself through the aircraft’s frame. His instrument panel
exploded with red warning lights. His left fuel pump was gone … trim
control … left rudder … The engine fire warning lit up and Batman
hurriedly shut down the fuel flow to the port engine and initiated a
shutdown. God! They’d been savaged!
“Malibu! You still with me?”
“I’m okay! I’m not sure the plane is!”
Smoke boiled from the Tomcat’s port engine. The left wing dropped low,
and the aircraft began shuddering as Batman struggled to bring it under
control. “Mayday! Mayday!” He could hear Malibu in the backseat
reciting the litany of an aircraft in distress. “This is Tomcat
Two-three-two declaring an emergency. We have been hit by hostile
ground fire and are going down. Mayday! Mayday …”
1251 hours, 17 January
Tomcat 203
Taggart kept the F-14 turning as the radar homer closed. The missile